Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
Longevity of focus, I think, is the hardest part. You know it's to have a vision and then try to hold that vision and not have it change.
It is ironic you could make an animated film about a dog that's a universal character, but God forbid it be a human being who is not a man.
The thing about 'Wonder Woman,' which is very feminine and definitely different, is that her objective is to bring love and truth to mankind.
Who should make a great movie about Wonder Woman? It should be somebody who loves Wonder Woman. And I know that I'm that. So let's go and try.
When I'm on a movie, I'm unavailable every day for a year and a half. You can't do that with a little baby. Somebody might be able to do it, but not me.
I try not to buy into that whole, crazy 'you are what you drive' mentality here, but I wouldn't want to be seen in a Ford Fiesta - you know what I mean?
I believe in Wonder Woman and the true spirit of Wonder Woman, and I wanted to tell that story. I didn't want to make her an alt version of Wonder Woman.
I have more information than anybody's ever had about this case. I have 7,000 letters from Aileen Wuornos and all the letters between her and her girlfriend.
I think that, for whatever reason, we've gotten to a place where, particularly in Hollywood, things have to be very pat. Like 'I'm a good guy. I'm a bad guy.'
De Niro didn't gain all that weight to play Jake La Motta just to prove he could get fat - every single one of those transformative things is grounded in the character.
I don't think I focused on the financial part of it, but definitely, my ambition is to be great, and that always meant that the sky was the limit for what I was hoping to do.
Any sympathy won for Aileen Wuornos based on a lie is not sympathy at all. The question is, can we have sympathy for the circumstances of someone's life? That's what I was interested in.
Being the person who gets to make a movie about Wonder Woman, of course, I take that incredibly seriously. I am a huge Wonder Woman fan, and the aspiration comes totally naturally to me.
My fantasy is that I could wake up looking amazing, that I could be strong and stop the bully, but that everybody would love me, too. I think that's intrinsic to fantasy - fantasy is fantasy.
Movies always had a captive audience, so they were able to do deeper, more complex things. Television was always about, 'Look at me now! Look at me now! Now go away!' That's starting to change.
I love that duality of Wonder Woman: that she both wants peace and means peace, but when push comes to shove and someone needs to be put down like a dog, that's what she would be willing to do.
Ultimately, so many things come down to money, but particularly when it comes to superheroes - people really thought that only men loved action movies and only men would go see a superhero movie.
There's an idea that action movies are more attractive to one gender than the other or different kinds of people or whatever. The truth is action is not any different than any other part of a story.
I've been influenced by a lot of films. And a lot of them are the typical interesting, artsy films. But I haven't talked enough about how there are those few big blockbusters that really rock your world.
As soon as I went to painting school in New York, I took an experimental film course, and everything clicked and came together. I realized my love of music and drama and the visual arts all came together.
There was a movie I was trying to make right after 'Monster,' a bigger behemoth: the Chuck Yeager story. It was a life dream, but it just didn't line up. We just had issues with the life rights, ultimately.
TV is really hard to break into. This may be the worst piece of advice, but make an independent film. TV oftentimes takes people who are established. The great benefit of not breaking in yet is purity of voice.
The need to look behind the curtain is great for a filmmaker. But whether you want to deconstruct what you like as a viewer, what you like and don't like, I wish we could let films stand on their own a little bit.
I've had tragedy in my life, and it doesn't stop comedy, so I think it's important to do both. Particularly in a superhero movie, but in any movie that accesses all people. Nobody wants to be abused for two hours.
There was a very difficult time when a female hero was a man in a woman's body. 'Hunger Games' really changed that: a woman leading a non-woman's film in the action genre. I think 'Wonder Woman' does that on a very big scale.
I never want to set a belief that a woman has to direct a woman's film, meaning she can't direct a man's film. If only films can be directed by people who are exactly the same as that, it's only gonna limit all of the women more.
Just look at Gal Gadot when she smiles or when she meets somebody and shakes their hand. That is the embodiment of Wonder Woman. She is so beautiful and powerful, but kind and generous and thoughtful. She's just an amazing person.
I remember when I read in the news that 'Wonder Woman' had been cast, and my heart sank. I had been talking to the studio for so long about doing it, and I was like, 'Well, 'that's that.' I'm sure we wouldn't have made the same choice.
My father was a fighter pilot, so I moved around the world when I was young. Then I ended up in Kansas. I'd just sort of gravitated toward the arts, and I had always loved music and really loved theater even though I didn't want to act.
I don't think I could have made a good movie out of 'Thor 2' because I wasn't the right director. And I don't think I would have been in the running for 'Wonder Woman' as a result. And that's one of the reasons why I'm glad I didn't do it.
To me, the two things that Gal Gadot - who is an amazing actress, and she played a great Wonder Woman - but the true things that she actually has inside of her are this incredible warmth and charm that is also informed by great intelligence. It's those two things.
When I made 'Monster,' I didn't think about it being about a woman. I didn't think about that she was a lesbian. I was telling a story about a specific person who was tragic and looking for love in the world, and the more I could make her you, the more of a victory.
I'd just sort of gravitated toward the arts, and I had always loved music and really loved theater, even though I didn't want to act. For some reason, being in Kansas, you can either be a graphic artist or a visual artist, so I decided, 'I guess I'm going to be a painter.'
It's like there's something very maternal about Wonder Woman: when push comes to shove, if nobody else wants to do it, Wonder Woman would step up and take care of business. But she doesn't want to do it, and she would never take any delight in it. That's Wonder Woman to me.
I was thinking I would love to make something that is a successful film that everybody sees, but I wasn't thinking about the actual dollar amount. I just wanted to make a great film that people responded to. That's always a good ambition because you'll never totally hit it.
I had an interesting moment with 'Wonder Woman' where, when I first thought about doing 'Wonder Woman 2,' I thought, 'Well, these are so intense, making these movies. It's a lot to think about doing more.' But then I had an epiphany, and I thought, 'Oh, it's not more - it's better.'
I'm making a movie about Wonder Woman, who I love, who to me is one of the great superheroes, so I just treated her like a universal character, and that's what I think is the next step when I think you can do that more and more and when studios have the confidence to do that more and more.
If you look at the history of Wonder Woman, you look at the iconography, the images that have kept her alive - they're not dark. The thing I think is so important to always keep in mind about her is how positive and bright and shiny she is - very much in the same way that Superman has been.
I know that I'm carrying a bit of a weight on my shoulders of what I do represents more than just myself as a director. I wish that wasn't true, but it is. It makes me think about doing work that I believe in and that I believe I can do well, probably even a hair more than I would otherwise.
As soon as I went to painting school in New York, I took an experimental film course, and everything clicked and came together. I realized my love of music and drama and the visual arts all came together. This happened in 1989. Since then, it's been a long road of educating myself in every possible way.
My father wanted to be a hero. He went to the Air Force Academy, was valedictorian, and then he found himself strafing villagers in Vietnam in a war he didn't want to be in and didn't understand. He was extremely conflicted about the line where he went from being the good guy to possibly being the bad guy.
There's the 7-year-old me that pretended to be Wonder Woman running around the schoolyard. Like, what an incredible thing to imagine that when the bully shows up or the villain, you would be strong enough to do something about it. But, also, you look like Lynda Carter while you're doing it - like, 'Oh, my God.'
At the end of the day, making 'Monster' was unbelievably hard, as making any movie is. And the only thing that made it worth it is not those awards and all those kind of things that I can barely remember because I was so overwhelmed. It was really that night in the editing room, that day on set. It was those things.
It's not about superheroes. This is the method of universal storytelling that all people have... To me, they're the same as the Greek myths or the Roman myths or religious figures of every religion. These are common characters that we use to express stories about being a better person or what you would do when faced with various things.
There's a lot of mythological stories you can tell. There's not just one. I appreciate all of those different kinds, but what I was personally missing was grand, classic, true-north hero. Pure and simple emotion, and also aiming for big time emotion, like love story as well, in a very sincere way. Like 'Superman: The Movie' had done for me.